


Goodbye (shouldn't be this easy)

by MK_Yujji



Series: The Road Less Travelled [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Divergent, M/M, Melancholy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 00:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6632989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/pseuds/MK_Yujji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There comes a point when even the strongest heart gives up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye (shouldn't be this easy)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at the end of "Meat".

The thing about it is that Ianto isn't even surprised.

He's spent months trying to ignore the way that Jack looks at Gwen, the way that she looks back. He's told himself over and over again that he's just as important as she is, that he's become more than the part time shag that Owen once accused him of being.

He's made an art of avoidance, never asking for more than Jack freely offers, never trying to put boundaries on their relationship no matter how the uncertainty of where he stands claws at him.

If he doesn't ask for more, he can almost believe that the way things are between them is of his own choosing and not because he'll never be better than second best.

That fragile pretense is shattered in the way Jack is still brooding an hour after Gwen's ultimatum and departure. It's been four hours since they'd finished up with the poor space whale and its torturers, five since Ianto had genuinely felt his heart stutter at the sound of a pulled trigger.

Jack hasn't asked if he's alright.

Not once in five hours.

If Owen hadn’t caught him halfway out the door, he’d already be at home licking his wounds in peace. He isn’t sure if he’s frustrated that his attempt to get away from the Hub has been thwarted or if he’s just pathetically grateful that someone noticed that he wasn’t all right.

Even if it’s not the someone he wishes it to be.

"I don’t like it," Owens mutters to himself as he runs the scanner over Ianto's skull a second time. 

"I'm not entirely pleased with it myself," Ianto replies, forcing down the urge to cock an eyebrow at the doctor. The skin above his right eye healed easily enough under the careful application of alien tech, but it still feels tight and achy. It won't take much to undo Owen's work. "Given the pack of weevils kicking drums and cymbals around in my head at the moment."

Owen just rolls his eyes. "I don’t think that it’s quite a concussion, but it's closer than I'm comfortable sending you home alone with."

There's no question that Jack can't be trusted to pay any actual attention any time soon. If at all.

"I'll be fine." He'll have to be. He doesn't have any other choice.

Biting his lip, Owen rocks back on his heels and considers Ianto for a moment before nodding decisively. "Come back to mine tonight."

"Why, Owen," Ianto manages to drawl. "I had no idea-"

"Don't be an arse. I can't exactly let the teaboy bleed his brains out, now can I? The girls would be impossible to live with."

They'll never be best friends, but Ianto and Owen settled most of their differences while Jack was gone. The team wouldn't have survived otherwise. Owen still coats his concern in sarcasm and insistence that it isn't concern at all, but it's a thin cover these days. The tension and anger is more like sibling rivalry than any kind of real aggression. If anyone else were to give Ianto half as much trouble as Owen does, the doctor would be the first person in their face.

And doesn't it just say everything that he's more sure of Owen's affection than Jack's?

Ianto sighs and brushes his fingers over the still warm, newly patched skin over his eyebrow. “I won't be alone, but I need to be away from Torchwood. For a few days, at least." 

The look on Owen's face is skeptical, but Ianto can't blame him for that. Torchwood has a way of swallowing up one's entire life and Ianto has given them little reason to believe that he has anything else. 

"Seriously, I'll call my sister, but...I think it's time that I reconsider my place in the universe in general and Torchwood specifically.” He can’t help the way his gaze drifts in the direction of Jack’s office. He can’t see it, not from where he’s at, but he doesn’t need to. He knows that Jack is still sitting at the desk brooding like the mere threat of Gwen leaving has ripped his world in two. It’d make Ianto sad for Jack if it wasn’t breaking his own heart. “I overestimated my reasons for remaining. It’s time that I re-evaluated that decision."

Owen doesn’t protest even though he looks a bit like he wants to. His mouth tightens and he crosses his arms tight against his chest. “What will you do if you’re not Torchwood?"

They both know that it’s not a job people walk away from. Not willingly.

Ianto smiles faintly and closes his eyes for a moment. A memory, still edged with pain, but getting a little better every day flickers through his mind. When he opens his eyes again, his smile is a little more sincere. “Someone made me a better offer after Canary Wharf. I couldn’t, then. I had Lisa to consider.” 

He hadn’t even let himself think about accepting it that day. His mind had been filled with nothing but saving Lisa. 

He’s thought about it since, though. When things are especially hard. When the others are especially oblivious. 

When Jack is especially callous.

Nodding more to himself than to Owen, he pushes himself up off the table. “I think I’ll see if that offer is still available to me."

“And if it isn’t?"

The genuine care and concern on Owen’s face is a surprise. It’s more open than either of them usually allow. It warms the cold hollow that Jack’s abandonment had settled in his chest.

“I’ll adapt. I’m very good at that.” He’s had to be. He snags his suit jacket from the stool where Owen had tossed it and dips his head in acknowledgement and appreciation. He sticks a hand out for a last handshake. “Thank you, Owen. I can’t say it’s always been a pleasure knowing you, but… I’m still glad that I did."

“He isn’t just going to let you go,” Owen cautions as he uses the hand to pull Ianto into an abrupt hug. He pushes him away almost as suddenly. He turns and starts banging around the medbay, pretending to be busy. “I’ll buy you a few days, but you’d better keep in touch. If the girls don’t know you’re alright, there’ll be mutiny."

It’s on the tip of Ianto’s tongue to remark on Owen’s tendency to hide his own softer side behind the girls, but he bites it back. This may be the last time they see each other. Maybe they need that shield to keep it sorted.

“I’ll do my best. And thank you. Really."

Owen just waves him off, refusing to turn around again. 

That’s fine. It makes things easier on Ianto, too.

Upstairs, he pauses to look at Jack’s office. The blinds are down, all the easier for Jack to pretend he’s all alone in the world.

The bruises on Ianto’s chest ache more than they should at the sight, but he ignores it. 

Jack’s made his choice and Ianto’s made his.

He gathers his few personal belongings from his locker and the desk he keeps in the archives. It’s not much. A few suits that he keeps at the Hub for those occasions when either a case or Jack keeps him there overnight. His personal coffee supply. A few bits and bobs that don’t mean anything to anyone but him. 

He leaves the volumes of his diary tucked in the archive shelves, filed under Torchwood Personnel. His aren’t the only diaries there, though he knows that they’re the most thorough. Perhaps some future archivist will read the cautionary tales within and keep from making the same mistakes that he has.

He feeds Myfwanny for the last time and whispers a fond farewell to a few of the more permanent residents of the cells.

Nothing seems to have stirred from the direction of Jack’s office and the medbay lights are down when he finally stands at the cog wheel door. 

He takes his last look around the place that has come to mean ‘home’ to him.

Considering all the blood, sweat, and tears that he’s shed for these walls and the people who’ve come and gone within them, it’s easier to say goodbye than he thinks it should be.

There’s no one watching to notice when he slips out the door.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginnings of what I hope will be a much larger series following Ianto Jones on the adventures offered by his 'better offer'.
> 
> I love Torchwood, but I admit to an unending frustration about how much crap all my favorite characters had to deal with. Ianto Jones was far from perfect, but he deserved so much more than he ever got from the universe in general and Jack in particular.
> 
> That may be a completely separate series right there - The _'We Deserved Better Than Our Significant Others'_ Club. Ianto Jones, Rhys Williams, Toshiko Sato, Micky Smith, and Rory Williams would all be the founding officers of that club. (technically, anyone who fell in love with the Doctor is probably an honorary member, though I feel that as he never even pretends to reciprocate they're prevented full membership.)


End file.
